by on August 29, 2009 Leave a Comment

Find lost files and folder with Spotlight

I find myself often forgetting where I put files on my system. When this happens I generally spend a few minutes hunting around my system trying to recall exactly what folder I put my files in. I don’t do this any longer because of a discover I made which is going to change the way you use your Mac.

Mac OSX includes a great built-in search engine called Spotlight which help you use your computer more efficiently. With it, you will no longer be stuck trying to remember where you saved that document, what website address had that recipe you liked and what the name of that MP3 file was.

This introductory video outlines the overall features of Spotlight

by on June 25, 2008 3 Comments

Use Spaces to organize the OS X desktop

Today’s installment of Learning OS X features the application Spaces. Spaces allows you to organize your OS X desktop by grouping your applications into virtual desktops or “Spaces”. If you like to multitask then the Spaces application will help you organize your desktop into various contexts. In this example I create two Spaces, one for personal information management and one for web browsing.

Let’s begin by enabling Spaces. Click the System Preferences and select Expose and Spaces. This will open the Spaces configuration window. There are two buttons labeled Expose and Spaces. Make sure that Spaces is selected. Select the check box Enable Spaces to turn on Spaces.

The application allows you to configure a number of Spaces by adding and removing rows and columns. For this example, I will setup two Spaces.

In addition, you can assign specific applications to open on a specific Space. I am specifying Safari to open in Space two and the Address book to open in Space one.

There are keyboard shortcuts to easily switch between spaces. The default behavior that I use most frequently is the Control key plus the left and right arrows to switch between these spaces.

Close the System Preferences and try out your new Space. Open Safari and your Address book. You will see that they open on two different Spaces. Use the Control + Left Arrow and Control + Right Arrow to switch between the two Spaces.

Spaces is a great way to organize your desktop. If you have any interesting uses for Spaces tell us about it.